The new general controller of Andalusia left unmolting 116 million of the company that directed | Spain

The general auditor of the Junta de Andalucía (PP), Miguel Ángel Figueroa, appointed on January 8, did not justify an economic hole of 116 million when he directed the IDEA agency between 2022 and 2024. This public company was created to boost the market with companies aid, but was very questioned in The case of the fraudulent ere. Figueroa has received several reproaches from the intervention it leads. The head of the body that controls the budget of the Autonomous Executive, of 48,871 million, eluded to clarify before the intervention why in the accounting of the Agency Idea there were 116 million in the liability without the idea to know what they correspond to, which motivated a serious censorship of their current subordinates. The Andalusian Ministry of Economy, Finance and European Funds has tried to cover said hole through a decree law with which the general intervention showed its disagreement.

Given this absence of economic justification that has caused an idea not to present their accounts since 2020, the auditors represented Figueroa In a hard financial control report completed two years later: “It is important to highlight that, regardless of strictly accounting issues, in the event that the agency failed to identify and purify the creditors in front of the Board for intermediation actions, for the amount of 116,622 thousand euros (sic), this would mean that idea has used public funds for said amount without being recorded. That is, no one in this great Andalusian public company knew how to justify why he had 116 million in his creditor balance with the Board. Nor Figueroa.

The senior officials who at the end of 2022 audited the annual idea accounts corresponding to the exercise of 2020, issued an unfavorable opinion for those 116 million and affected Figueroa to avoid regularizing them. « While the provisions detected mostly correspond to previous exercises and are not the responsibility of the current management of the agency, it is the purification and regularization of the annual accounts of 2020 before its definitive approval and in the face of their next integration into the Trade agency, » the auditors censored, today under the orders of Figueroa, in said report, of 237 pages. The forceful file was sent by the General Intervention to Idea, the Ministry of Finance and the Andalusian Account Chamber.

The presentation of accounts at the end of the year is an essential procedure for companies, especially for public, since it gives a faithful image of their annual accounts: they include the profit and loss account, the state of changes in the net worth, the state of cash flows that reflects the treasury, the balance that fixes the heritage after counting assets and liabilities, and the memory.

When asked why he did not present his accounts for five years, Figueroa throws balls out: « Ask him to the one in front, I was only two years, » he replies without specifying more. The general intervention of the Board is in the eye of the informative hurricane since the predecessor of Figueroa, María Antonia González, ceased in its position on January 8 and three weeks later The new general auditor would dismiss four of the eight division bossesan unpublished fact in the history of the Supervisory Body and that the political opposition called « purge. » Two weeks later it transcended the meeting in which the Vice Minister of the Treasury, Amelia Martínez, had warned in December the dome of the general intervention: « It takes a new general controller with a hard hand that puts you at the waist, » said number two of the Ministry to the dome of the elite body of officials, according to several coincident testimonies present at the meeting. A month later, Figueroa landed in office.

Martínez states that the economic hole comes from far back. First, he said that it corresponded to « a neutral agreement between the Ministry of Employment and Idea » and then declared that « intermediations between Councils, fundamentally employment. » « Then everything was paid by the Socialists (…) Since 2019 we are trying to know what those millions correspond to, » he says.

Since the serious reproach issued in 2022, an idea has not followed the recommendations of the intervention, since the accounts still do not appear five years later. Those of 2020, 2021, 2022 or 2023 have not been approved, as deduced from the control reports of the general account of the Andalusian Board made by the Chamber of Accounts. Given the repeated censorship of the auditors, as established by the regulation of the intervention, the next step must be an action report that Figueroa would now issue about its previous action, so it would be before an obvious conflict of interest. There is even a precedent that indicates the way: in 2014 the general auditor issued an action report by funds not reimbursed to idea after granting guarantees to companies.

The action report, which warns of the non -adoption of the recommendations of the intervention, is a red alert that raises the general auditor of the Board to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Carolina España, when all the notices of the intervention have fallen into a broken sac and there is a clear accounting breach of an organ that must be resolved from higher administrative levels. “The idea of ​​idea has always been a disaster and those responsible said that this Puff was so old that they did not know what it had been spent because it came from the socialist stage. They did not know or could not be purged, always with balls outside and did not give partial solutions, ”explained sources of the case.

The Andalusian deputy of Vox Alejandra Jiménez criticized three weeks ago in the Plenary of Parliament What idea (Andalusia Innovation and Development Agency) has not presented its accounts since 2020, But the counselor kept silent and did not clarify the question. “The Ministry of Economy has become a cabin of the Marx brothers. The rule is a pupo to cover files and the fudge do their face, counselor. Figueroa and his former IDEA agency have been approved or submitted since 2020, as reported by the Chamber of Accounts. The papers are still in the boxes. Will they not be without presenting the idea accounts because there are liabilities that cannot be justified? Aclárela, counselor, ”the parliamentarian snapped to Spain.

As an idea he did not approve his accounts in 2020, those balances did not appear in the general account of the Andalusian Board, that compiles at the end of the year all income and expenses, somewhat regulated by law. « It is a savage that idea does not present its accounts, » summarizes a former high position of the agency. Despite this anomaly, The reproach of the Chamber of Accounts in its Supervisory Report on Exercise 2022 was mild: « The general account does not include the financial statements, although partially the budgets, of the IDEA Agency, when the annual accounts of the 2022 exercise, both individual and consolidated, » says said file. The person in charge of formulating the idea accounts is its general director (Figueroa between 2022 and 2024) and The Governing Council (May Martínez chairs with four vowels) approves them.

Apart from its bulky annual budget, an idea has been nourished for years of financing transfers from different councils that at the end of the year failed to execute their budget. The powerful agency was like a tailor drawer that assumed millions to dedicate them to guarantees, loans or subsidies to companies and thus boost the market. However, part of the money received had to return the idea to the councils and those 116 million never returned, to be attributed to the agency's liability. Three years ago that idea is diminishing and its budget has fallen from 264 million in 2022 to 246 in 2023, 121 in 2024 and only 31 million this year because the Board is liquidating it to integrate it into The trade macroagency (Business Agency for Economic Transformation and Development) before disappearing.

After the censorship of the auditors in the late 2022, the Board has tried to cover the gap in its accounts through an additional provision of a decree law, with the refusal of the dome of the general intervention, auditors officials who verify compliance with the law in each expense of the Andalusian budget. With this provision, the Ministry of Finance intended to authorize the idea to discharge the pending balances with the only reference of the account to regularize, not to mention the amount of 116 million and without explaining why they were eliminated from a stroke, in order to avoid calling the opposition attention, according to sources of the case.